Category: railway

The end of summer? – 18 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

DSC_6158- flickr--231Today started cloudy and remained that way until the early afternoon when the sun finally broke through.

I went for a walk along the railway hoping to get some black and white shots, or more exactly, some shots that would transfer well into black and white. It didn’t happen.  I couldn’t settle on anything at all and came home with a few photos, but nothing that I would be happy to upload to Flickr.  Just as well really as Flickr is in one of its strunts when it refuses to upload any photos.  That is why today’s link takes you to the full size image instead of Flickr.  This is happening more and more recently of late to Flickr and makes me glad that I didn’t opt for a ‘Pro’ account, ie.  one that I have to pay for.  Flickr is owned by Yahoo and Yahoo appears to be in trouble at the moment, so it’s spending less and less money on peripherals like Flickr, so outages aren’t dealt with as an urgent need.  All it means is that I’ll upload tomorrow, not today.  It matters very little today as the only decent photo I got was the one above of some pansy seeds.

Rain due tomorrow.  The garden needs it.

Cake Today! – 15 August 2016

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15 Aug bWell, we did have cake today!  Woke to sunshine that didn’t really go away all day.

The sun enticed us out and into the wide world.  We couldn’t agree on a destination until Scamp suggested that we go a walk along the canal.  Now I go there quite often, but it’s a while since she’s walked along it, so it was decided that we’d drive to Auchinstarry and walk along to Twechar and back.

Today was the day the teachers went back to work after the summer hols and as we were walking along the railway, I was thinking about all the times I’ve sat in the assembly hall at school listening to head teachers and deputes droning on about grade averages, STACs, child protection procedures and other dry, boring paper-pushing nonsense.  They always started with a jolly “Well I hope you’ve enjoyed your holidays and are feeling refreshed.  Here’s the bad news …….. “.  Drone, drone, drone.  It was essential to get there early, not to show you were interested, although there were some that did.  No, it was to grab the seats at the back where you could doodle unseen on the hundred page handout you’d been given with charts and tables and mind numbing statistics that meant nothing to anyone but the bean-counter who had created them.  “Can you see this Powerpoint alright at the back?” some depute would ask. “Yes, we’re just not interested.” we’d mumble in reply.

Ah, but while all my former colleagues were enjoying this annual festival of figures and meaningless jargon, we were out in the sunshine, admiring the flowers and the light through the leaves and counting the wee fishes and talking to the ducks.  It was when we were walking back along the canal towpath I heard what I thought at first was a motorbike before I realised that although the pitch of the engine was rising, it wasn’t changing gear and it seemed to he coming from Barr Hill which has a roman fort, but no roads.  I knew what it was then, it was a Piaggio.  It’s an Italian plane type called a canard.  Which is a plane with a wing towards the rear and two little winglets just rear of the nose which makes it look as if it’s flying backwards.  Some people think it looks like a duck, hence the name ‘canard’.  Some have actual tail fins and tail planes like a normal aircraft and some have jet engines, but most have pusher props.  That is, the propellers stick out the back of the plane and push it through the air rather than pull it like a conventional plane. (I like planes, in case you hadn’t guessed.)  I’d seen one last year at almost exactly the same place, but hadn’t got a photo of it.  I started taking my camera out of the bag and tried explaining to Scamp what it was I was so excited about.  She didn’t share my enthusiasm and said “Oh, so it’s a plane?”  I managed two shots of the Piaggio before it disappeared into a cloud.  Neither of them very good.  I’ve never managed to get a good clean shot of this plane.  You can see today’s effort above.  Maybe one day …

After we drove home and had lunch, Scamp wanted to work in the garden.  I dumped my photos into Lightroom and let it get to work on them.  Then we sat in the garden and read until it was time to make the dinner and then get ready for salsa class.  I had done my exercises from the physio this morning under a hot shower and they paid off while I was in the class, allowing much more movement than I’d had last week.  We were able to complete almost all the moves tonight which is proof that we are moving in the right direction.

Beautiful sunset tonight which augers well for tomorrow’s weather.  We’ll see what the day brings.  If it’s as good as today it will be very welcome.

A New Start – 8 August 2016

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8 augToday we returned to the gym after a couple of months lay off.  Hopefully it will be a return to fitness for us with our stated intention of having two days a week at the gym and pool.  Well, the weans will be back at school next week, so there should be fewer of them in the pool.  It was good to get back to a bit of exercise.

In the afternoon I went for a walk along the railway and got some good shots of a couple of Red Admiral butterflies as well as some abstract looking photos of translucent seed pods on the gorse bushes.  It was a lovely day when I was out, but half an hour earlier it had been heavy rain.  I wasn’t complaining, because the sun shone all the time I was out.

To complete our ‘new start’, Scamp started back at salsa class tonight and her shoulder held up with very little pain or awkwardness.  Tomorrow will be a better test to see how successful it was.

Off to Larkhall tomorrow for eye checks for us both.

Fish, Weeds, Hoverflies and Snails – 2 August 2016

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2 July bWent for a walk along the railway before dinner tonight and noticed that my plan to re-seed the banks of the burn with Himalayan Balsam last year had been successful.  The Himalayan Balsam was everywhere, as was the cowparsley and meadowsweet.  I so like the cowparsley.  It’s always a great place for insects, like the great big helicopter landing pad of the insect world.  Today I chased hoverflies of various stripes, and even some without stripes!  Thankfully I managed to catch one of them, even if it was from the rear.   However, it was the snails that were really the stars of the cowparsley.  You see, everyone wants in on the act with this versatile plant.  I’d plant some in the garden if Scamp would let me (fat chance there).

I don’t think tomorrow is spoken for yet, but Thursday and Friday are booked already.  How did I find the time to work, eh?

In the morning we drove to Linlithgow to get some fish at Oyster Oyster.  So it was sea bass for dinner tonight and probably herring in oatmeal for lunch tomorrow.  No fish fingers for dinner tomorrow though.  There’s plenty more fish in the sea and also in the freezer now too.

Stupid O’ Clock – 7 July 2016

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7 JulyWoke at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep again, so it was off again to Auchinstarry to walk along the canal to Twechar and then back along the railway to Auchinstarry again and then drive home for breakfast.  That’s twice this week I’ve needlessly woken and walked in the middle of the night, well, almost in the middle of the night!  The walk along the canal, although interesting wasn’t as good as Tuesday’s one along the railway.  Yes, the birds were singing and the smell of the flowers was great, but it was a lot cloudier today and the light wasn’t as good as Tuesday’s.  That said, I did manage to get a photo of a deer racing up towards Barr Hill and a nice wee peaceful shot of the canal at Smithstone.  Smithstone was a wee hamlet near Auchinstarry in the early 1900s.  My dad told me about it, but he pronounced it ‘Smeeston‘.  Now Smithstone is a new housing estate in Cumbernauld.

After breakfast, I took the car down to get expert opinion on a leaky gasket on the offside drive shaft.  It goes in tomorrow to get it fixed.  Apparently it’s a known problem with Renaults, but more of a problem with Corsas.  Why don’t manufacturers act on the information they are getting from dealers and redesign these things before they become a bigger problem.  That’s what turns people away from British and European cars.  I think our next car will be a Nissan, a Honda or a Kia.

We went to Vecchia Bologna for lunch and although it wasn’t the best I’ve had there, it was most enjoyable.
So tomorrow will be another enforced early rise to get a new gaiter fitted to the Megane.  What we do with the rest of the day will depend on the weather.  After a fairly decent day, it’s raining now, and is forecast to rain all night, but tomorrow is supposed to be fair.  Saturday is set fair too.  Sunday?  Oh dear, I think I’ll stay in bed all day on Sunday!

Sleep Walking – 5 July 2016

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5 JulyWoke at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided that as it was a lovely looking day, I shouldn’t waste it lying in bed, so I got up and dressed and drove down to Auchinstarry and walked out along the railway. Although the birds were singing in the trees, I couldn’t see a single one and there were no deer or other animals to be seen either. What there were, were hundreds of slugs and snails, probably encouraged out after the overnight rain. Although I quite like snails, slugs not as much, I didn’t want to spend my walk photographing them. Instead, I took some photos of the leaves and plants that were shaking off the rain. In the process, I got soaking wet, but that’s inevitable as soon as you leave the path. By the time I got back it was just after 9am and time for breakfast and the sun was still shining. That was so much better than lying in bed thinking I should be doing something more creative. Scamp was just getting up when I got in and breakfast was beckoning.

Skipping forward to lunchtime, I took myself off to the pool for a swim. No gym yet, I’m not ready for the full exercise regime just yet. On the way, I stopped in at Jim Dickson to get two new front tyres to be ready for the drive down south later in the month. £100 lighter, I went to the pool and had a relaxing sauna, swim and steam bath. Then I intended nipping in to B&Q to get a price for some gravel to edge the grass at the back garden, then going to see what was wrong with the air-con in the car. It was supposed to be a quick visit, but then I bumped into an old colleague Mae Campbell (no relation). We spent nearly an hour standing taking about folk we used to know and schools and stuff. That put paid to my visit to Bonnybridge to check the air-con. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Flickr seemed to be working better tonight and when I uploaded the photos, the first one that appeared was the mono shot of the grass flower. That made me think of a Lush shower gel I used to get called, oddly enough, ‘Grass’! They had stopped making it, but I was told in the shop to check the ‘Kitchen’ area on-line as Lush occasionally made up small batches of some discontinued lines. Lo and behold, this week there was a short production line of … Grass!  Ordered on the spot.

No great fakery today with the photos, not anything like yesterday’s forgery. Only cropping, a bit of tonal adjustment and then, for some, a reduction to black and white.

Don’t know if I’m doing an early shift tomorrow. It depends on my sleep pattern.

An improving day – 27 June 2016

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27 June

With Scamp’s cold improving, she went to Marji’s for June-D’s birthday lunch. That left me off the leash for an hour or so in the afternoon. I spent the morning looking for the serial key for a piece of software I wanted to swap over from the Toshiba to the new Linx. Never did find it and I wasted almost a whole morning trying. I wasn’t going to waste the afternoon.

Once I’d got my ‘easy’ sudoku solved (Easy? Do these people know the meaning of the word?) I got ready, and dressed to deter the ticks, I drove down toe Auchinstarry to see what was new along the railway. The answer was, quite a lot actually. The trees were in full leaf now and the smells from the flowers, especially the Meadowsweet were lovely. There was quite a strong westerly wind blowing and this helped make the lighting on the hill much more interesting. Unfortunately, the wind also blew in the rain clouds that joined me for the walk back to the car. I could have got soaked, but luckily I’d prepared well and brought my old almost-waterproof rain jacket with me. It saved the day again. Happy with the collection of photos I got today.

Salsa for me tonight, but as I was getting into the car, I felt that little roughness in my throat. Don’t tell me I’m getting Scamp’s Lurgi. Salsa was interesting with three new moves for me to remember. Hope my voice recorder has caught all the nuances of the moves.

Just about to start on the doggie bags Scamp brought back from the party.

A Wild Night – 14 June 2016

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14 June

 

Last night was a wild one and no mistake.  50mph winds and heavy seas.  We’re down in the bowels of the ship and therefore we feel it the most.  Last year we had the room below the kitchen and this year we have an even noisier room.  Worse still, the weather is to be equally bad tonight.  Oh what fun.

We were up and out early this morning and waiting in line for our ticket to freedom.  Ville Franche is a small town and the dock area is nowhere near big enough to take a ship the size of ours, so we are ferried off with a tender.  To achieve a semblance of order, you have to queue for a number.  Once you have this you have to wait in one of the restaurants or bars for a tender to become available.  Since there are around 2000 people on board and a tender takes less than 100, it can take a while.  The tenders themselves have to obey the local speed limit of 5 knots in the open water of the bay and 3 knots nearer shore.  This means the transfer takes even longer than it needs to take.  French rules apparently.  Also, because the tenders are constantly travelling there and back, they occasionally need refuelling.  It was going to be a long morning.  Actually, the girl who was giving out the tickets estimated an hour and she wasn’t far wrong.  One of the blessings of tender departure is that there are no bloody motorized wheelchairs or scooters.  These things are not only a menace, they are a downright danger in the close confines of a ship.  I understand the need for wheelchairs, but the amount of them, and the bloody bleeping scooters on this ship drives me to distraction.  I was standing in a bar tonight and some idiot decided to park their son’s scooter right behind me then proceeded to get shirty when I wouldn’t let him drive over me.  Apparently I should have had eyes in the back of my head!

Once we got our tender across to Ville Franche, we were on one of Scamp’s route marches to the station to get the train to Monte Carlo.  Train took 15 minutes to travel the 9 or so miles  to the millionaire’s playground.  Once we got off, we followed the crowd up the stairs, up the escalators, up in the lift and out at St Devote corner, famous to F1 fans.  We walked down the street, down steps, down in a lift and on to the harbour where we had a pizza each, shared a carafe of wine, and with free WiFi got two blogs posted.  Then we headed back, thinking that we’d need to climb up the near vertical streets to get back to the station.  Then we met an Indian family who had been on the train in.  They had found a much easier alternative route.  This took us from street level along a gentle incline on a travellator directly into the station.  Superb.  No climbing necessary.

Back in Ville Franche, we wandered round a market, I took some photos and we headed back to the ship.  After an hour or so of sunbathing it was time to get ready for dinner.  We sat with a cheery Yorkshire contingent who were on their first cruise, and they kept us amused throughout dinner.

Afterwards, we went to see the Piano Brothers second performance of the week and then had coffee in the buffet on 15 before turning in.  It’s getting a bit noisy now with crashy waves, so I’m off to get a few hours shut eye because I didn’t sleep much last night.

Tomorrow is Livorno, an old friend.  We both like Livorno with its canals and markets like The Barras.

This blog upload courtesy of Grand Bar in Livorno.

Land of the Custard Tarts. – 11 June 2016

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11 June3

My Uncle Bob, when he was returning to Larkhall would say “Back to the land of Sugartops.”  For those not born in Larky, a sugartop was a Saturday morning staple.  It was a bit like a flattened roll with sugar syrup on top.  The syrup acted like an adhesive to hold the lump sugar on top.  You spread butter on the flat bottom of the sugartop (unsalted butter was best) and ate it for breakfast on a Saturday.  As far as I know, they were only made in Larky and then only by one bakers, Eadie’s which closed a long time ago and took with it the sugartop.  If Larky was the land of the sugartops, Lisbon must be the land of the Portuguese Custard Tarts.  I know you can get them in Costa’s in the UK and I’ve seen recipes for them in books, but nothing comes close to the Lisbon Custard Tart.  With that in mind, our first stop once we alighted from the bus was the tart shop.  Scamp remembered how to get there and flew as straight as an arrow to the cafe.  Two custard tarts, one sprinkled with cinnamon (for me).  One sprinkled with icing sugar (for Scamp).  Two coffees, one white, one black.  Cost?  €4.50!  A bargain in anyone’s book.  You eat the tart and drink the coffee standing at a shelf in the cafe.  There are no seats.  It’s a eat an go thing.  Maybe Eadie’s in Larky should have adopted that strategy with sugartops.

After our second breakfast we wandered round the squares of Lisbon.  By the way, when we were at the breakfast table in the restaurant this morning, it caused great hilarity when I said we were off to find some tarts in Lisbon.  I can’t see why.  We walked up and up and up the hill to see the view from the top.  On the way I listened to a girl singing and playing a spanish guitar.  A dangerous thing to play in Portugal I’d have thought.  The don’t have much truck with their bigger neighbour.  A bit like Scotland and England, so I can understand their mindset.  Anyway, I listened to this girl playing and singing and I quite liked what I’d heard, so I bought her CD for €5. Then it was time to start on the upward trek again.  The view from the top when we reached it was great.  I remember it from the last time.  The easy way to get up to the viewpoint is to take the funicular tram.  We chose to use this tram to get us down to the level of the three central squares.  It only takes about five minutes to complete the downward journey and halfway down you meet the other tram coming up.  Very neat and orderly.  I don’t know if they use the downward tram as a counterbalance for the other one coming up to safe energy or not, but it’s a gentle way to spend five minutes on these veteran trams.

I like Lisbon, we both do, and not just because of the custard tarts either.  The city seems as if it’s stuck in a timewarp.  Some of it looks quite Victorian, some of it harks back to the ‘50s, but not a lot of central Lisbon is modern.  The train station which also houses Starbucks has a lovely Art Nouveau frontage.  Possibly the poshest Starbucks I’ve ever seen.  Just along from Posh Starbucks is a tiny wee shop that is always seriously locked up with steel shutters on the door and behind the windows.  In the window is a wide selection of wicked looking knives.  Best of all though is the advert on the side for pistols, carbines, rifles and ammunition.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they could furnish you with an AK47.  They used to also sell fake, but very convincing police ID in a variety of nationalities.  They no longer have them in the window, but that doesn’t mean they don’t sell them inside.

Back at the ship we found a small pool at the stern and settled into sunbeds there, only to find that we had left the oversize towel pegs at home.  Scamp thought I’d packed them and I thought she had.  Oh dear.  Maybe we’ll find a Lakeland at Gibraltar tomorrow and get a new set.  They’re so useful for attaching your pool towel to your sunbed.

We stayed there until we sailed away from Lisbon for this year.  Hopefully we’ll be back.  As we sailed under the combined road and train bridge on our way out of Lisbon, I thought back to 6am this morning standing on the deck in my shirt sleeves freezing in the chill wind photographing us going under it on the way in.  It’s still impressive and it gives you a sense of scale of the ship seeing the minimal clearance between the top of the mast and the underside of the rail bridge part.

Show tonight was “Blame it on the boogie”.  Least said the better.  Not so much Boogie as Boggin!

Much later arrival in Gibraltar tomorrow, 11.30am.

Back To School – 1 June 2016

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1 june bBack, but just visiting. A bit like the jail in the Monopoly board, it’s ok to visit, but I don’t want to go there. It was good to speak to former colleagues with a lot of friends among them, but it was even better to leave. I was only going to sign up for a retiral dinner for a two teachers who are making the best move they’ll ever make. Well, it is for Scamp and I anyway.

Other than that, I got some photos while I was out on a walk, but nothing spectacular.

The strangest shot I got was the one of the moth. I spotted it last night as I was going to bed, but it flew off before I could get a photo. I did get one clear photo this morning but I still can’t identify it. The unusual thing about it is the way the tail hooks over almost like a sting. It could be like the scorpion wasp that looks like a scorpion, but has no sting.

Today was another scorcher with temperature of 13.4c when I got up to make the breakfast this morning. The temperature increased to over 19c later in the day.

Looking forward to tasting our Strawberry Vodka tomorrow.